ABSTRACT

This research work assessed women farmers' perception of the influence of WIA programme in Southeast Agro-ecological Zone based on the following objectives: (1) to determine the levels of involvement of women in agricultural production activities, (2) assess the extent to which it has led to increase in women farmers' access to technical information on agricultural production activities, (3) assess the extent it has led to increase in women farmers' access to farm inputs/resources, (4) assess the extent to which it has led to increase in women farmers' income, yield and decision-making power and (5) identity factors that influenced the participation of women farmers in WlA activities. Measurement of the indicators for actualizing these objectives resulted to the adoption of stratified random sampling technique using semi-structured questionnaires for data collection that lasted from April to August 2005. Two hundred and twenty five (225) contact women farmers were interviewed and data collected were quantified using rating scale of: Solely involved (3), Highly involved (2), Fairly involved (1), Not involved (0) -for objective 1- Significant increase (5), Slightly increase (4), No change (3), Slight decrease (2), and Significant decrease (1) - for objectives 2, 3, 4. The data were analysed using ANOVA under Complete Randomized Block Design (RCBD). Descriptive statistics - percentage and frequency were equally used. Results indicated that women farmers were significantly (1 .68) involved in all the agricultural production activities. They tended to be solely involved in planting with mean level of involvement as 2.05 and least involved in land tillage (1.16) and mound making (1.10). Results also indicated that women farmers' to technica! information due to the influence of WIA Programme was significant with mean access value of 4.16. Access to technical information on planting and fertilizer application was the highest with mean access values as 4.59 and 4.54 respectively while access to technical information on winnowing and threshing was the lowest with 3.68 and 3.72 mean values respectively. Furthermore, women farmers' access to farm inputs/resources was not significant. The grand mean access value (3.65) was below 4. Results also showed that women farmers perceived significant increases in their farm income, yield and decision-making power. The improvement was more on yield with mean value as 4.38 followed by decision-making power (4.23) and income (4.04). Of importance also is that majority (36%) of women farmers stated that the greatest problem that hindered their participation in WIA programme's activities was that WIA staff did not provide them with farm inputs after teaching them. With these results, it was concluded that WIA programme is fulfilling some of the objectives for setting it up. Therefore, based on these findings, the project recommended, among other things, that the programme should be sustained and if possible expanded to affect other government's agencies, ministries and parastatals in Nigeria.